Flirting With Fate (20 page)

Hell, he hadn’t been here two minutes, and she was
already pissed at him.

He slowly crossed the room, studying her, not sure
if he should be more intimidated by her beauty or the glares she was tossing
his way. Irritation was written all over her beautiful face. “I’m not exactly
sure what I did wrong here.” Hell, he wasn’t sure what he’d done right that
she’d done this expecting him to join her.

“Come closer,” she said, nodding to the edge of
the bed.

He took a step toward her. If this was a Shifter,
this was a weird-ass way to get his attention.

 “Closer,” she demanded.

“What big teeth you have, Grandma,” he said.

She didn’t laugh. “Very funny. Sit.”

Weird but effective. How was he going to say no to
her now, here, dressed like that? “Josie, I’m gonna be honest here. I’m not
sure if I should be turned on or nervous.”

“Get closer so I can see your eyes.”

He lowered himself to the edge of her bed and
leaned forward until their lips were only inches apart.

“What color bra was I wearing the first time we
kissed?”

He cocked his head. “I’m sorry, teacher, I didn’t
take notes. You never told me this would be on the test.”

She slammed her heel into the bed. “What color,
Tanner?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I didn’t see your
bra that day, and despite what you may think is appropriate, I don’t spy on
pretty girls.”

 She stared at him for another long beat before
collapsing against the headboard. “I’m glad you’re you.”

He raised a brow. “Who else would I be?” She studied
the ceiling, and when his patience ran dry, he said, “Would you fill me in
here? What’s up with the Little Red Riding Hood reenactment? The questions? The
staring?” He paused a beat. “The handcuffs?”

She growled and yanked at her cuffed wrists.
“Ouch! I don’t remember there being handcuffs in Little Red Riding Hood.”

His lip twitched. “You haven’t seen the adult
version? Little Red Riding—”

“Stop there,” she said. “I don’t think I want to
know.”

He chuckled, glad as hell just to be close to her
again. Even (or was that particularly?) given the circumstances. “Wait. How did
you—” She couldn’t have very well cuffed herself. Not like that.

Her eyes widened. “You think I did this? What kind
of floozy do you think I am?”

 “Doesn’t seem to me like you’re in a position to
verbally abuse me, but I can go if you’d prefer.”

“No! Please! I need you.”

He had a feeling she didn’t mean that in the way
he’d like, but he was glad she didn’t call his bluff. “You know I can’t say no
to a beautiful woman who’s half nude and cuffed to a bed.” He waited a beat.
“Why are you cuffed to the bed again?”

“There was a Shifter here.”

Tanner closed his eyes. “Ah, so that’s what the
game of Twenty Questions was for.” He nodded, proud she was being cautious.
“Think it was the Shifter I warned you about?”

“You didn’t warn me about any Shifter!”

He pulled a hand over his face. “Listen to your
messages tonight?”

“Oh,” she said, at least having the courtesy to
look chagrined. “No, I didn’t.” Then, “The bitch took my favorite dress.”

“And you let her cuff you to the bed because…?”

“Why do you assume I let her?”

Tanner smirked. “Because that is not the pose or
position of an unwilling woman.” He studied her, suddenly feeling much better
about their situation. “Who did you think was cuffing you to the bed?”

Red tinge crept up her face. “I’d rather not say.”

His smile grew. “Josie…”

She rolled her eyes and threw her head back with a
frustrated growl. “You, okay? I thought you were putting the handcuffs on me.”
She stared at the ceiling. “In a romantic way.”

“You thought
I
was putting handcuffs on
you…and you let me?”

She lowered her gaze and glared at him. “Are you
going to mock me or help me?”

He dropped his gaze. Her breasts were full under
the slip, her nipples hard little beads under the silky fabric. He turned
toward her and gave a slow and steady perusal of her thighs, just a little soft
where the edge of the slip brushed them. Her legs were the long,
just-soft-enough kind that a man wanted to feel wrapped around his waist. She
shifted them slightly as he studied her.

“Tanner, I’m embarrassed, okay, what else do you—”

“Why do you assume I’m mocking you? Maybe I’m
jealous of the damn Shifter.”

“Jealous?”

“Jealous she thought of it first. Hell,
I
have handcuffs.”

Josie laughed, and he pulled his gaze from her
legs to see her smile. “I should have known it wasn’t you. You don’t have the
balls to tie me up.”

“Careful, Josie. That sounded like a dare to me.”

Her tongue darted across her bottom lip and her
eyes flashed. “Maybe it is.”

Groaning, he leaned forward. He ran his index
finger over the lip she’d been assaulting with her teeth. She met his eyes and
drew his finger into her mouth, wrapping her tongue around it and—dear God. The
pleasure shot right through his gut and swelled in his cock.

“Josie, you know that noble guy? That guy who
would take this opportunity to remind you this is exactly what you didn’t want
with him?” He pulled his finger from her mouth and ran it down her neck and
over her collarbone.

She tilted her head to allow him better access as
he traced across the hollow of her neck and over a bare shoulder. “What about
him?”

He slid his finger under a strap and slipped it
down her arm. “He’s not here tonight.”

“Good,” she said, her eyes burning into his.
“Neither is that girl who cares what the future brings.”

“Shit,” he muttered, because he did care what the
future brought. He wanted so damn much to protect her, but he wasn’t sure she
would let him. All he could control was this moment.

He slipped his hand under her jaw and lowered his
mouth to hers.

She tasted sweet, like ripe, exotic fruit that
only made him thirsty for more. She arched under him, and all he wanted to do
was feel her move while he buried himself inside her.

“I’ve seen us together,” she murmured. “For the
last six months, every time I touched you, it seemed, I saw sex, passion—” She
caught his lower lip between her teeth. When she released it, she said, “But I
never saw this.”

She’d spent six months envisioning them together.
The shot was like liquid pleasure through his veins, settling hot, heavy, and
hard in his dick and leaving him with a pulsing ache. Had she gotten wet,
thinking about what she’d seen? Had she gotten off on it? Is that what she’d
thought of the night he’d listened to her get off in this very bed? “Tell me what
you saw.” He traced fingertips over the silky slip, circling where her nipple
pebbled underneath. “Tell me what turned you on.”

“All of it,” she moaned. “Tanner, our bodies are
good together.”

He pinched her nipple lightly, and she bucked beneath
him. He tortured it between his fingers.

“God, Tanner, hurry.” She lifted her hips off the
bed, rolled them, her body pleading right along with her lips for what it
instinctively craved.

He wanted to feel her in his arms, under him. He
wanted to feel their skin slide together. He pulled his shirt off over his
head. Her eyes flashed with appreciation as she studied his bare chest. “Tell
me what you liked best,” he said. He slid down beside her on the bed and
propped himself up on his elbow to study her. She was gloriously perfect: soft
curves over a strong body, ivory skin he wanted to taste every inch of.

“I liked it all,” she managed. “But I like this
more—” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I like this more because I don’t know
what you’ll do next.”

He moved to the other nipple, and she whimpered.
“But, dear God, please do something.”

She liked not knowing what came next? He grinned.
“I’ll be right back.” Rolling off the bed, he stood and walked out of the room.

“Tanner,” she called at his back. “Tanner, where the
heck are you going?”

Mallory flicked her hand toward the far wall and
frowned when nothing happened.

“What were you trying to do that time?” Quinton
asked.

“Throw flames,” she said, her shoulders sagging.
She’d tried levitating, disappearing, controlling his electronic devices with
her mind, shifting into a different form, and every other wacko power she could
think of, but nothing worked.

Unfortunately, she was still convinced she had
some sort of superpower.

“Listen, Mal, maybe your dad lied to you and you
thought—”

She glared at him. “There are people in this very
city with special powers, Quinton. You’ve just been too stubborn to notice.”

He laughed. “Right, and I suppose that was your
doppelganger I’ve been seeing all week? What did you call them? Shifters?”

“My doppelganger? What are you talking about?”

Josie sagged into the pillows. When she told Tanner
she liked the unexpected, this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind. He’d left
her body a live wire and her clit swollen. The muscles between her legs pulsed,
begging for attention, begging to be stretched, to have something to squeeze.
She wanted him in her, filling her, pounding into her until she screamed. She
wanted him to turn this handcuff fiasco into something worth remembering.

And Elvis had left the building.

“Wiley?” she called again.

He stepped into the room, a Machiavellian grin
spreading across his face.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

She obeyed and felt cool fabric against her eyes.
“A blindfold?”

“This way you won’t know what comes next,” he
explained, his voice rough.

Her breathing quickened. With her wrists cuffed
above her head and her sight taken by the blindfold, she was powerless. But she
trusted Tanner so completely that what should have made her frightened—or at
the very least cautious—turned her on.

He ran his hands down her body, over the cool
fabric of her slip, and back up underneath. She arched her back. The heat of
his hands and the barest touch intensified by her temporary loss of sight.

One hand stayed on her breast, torturing her with
whisper light touches, while the other slipped between her legs. She spread
them for him, and whimpered when he didn’t slip his fingers over and into her
slick sex. Instead, he teased the tender skin of her inner thigh with light
circular touches.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, his breath
hot on her ear.

“Touch me,” she said without hesitation. “Touch me
now.”

He chuckled and cupped her breast, fondling it
ever so gently. “I am touching you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t, Josie. I think I know what you want one
minute, and the next you’re pushing me away. I’m afraid you’re going to have to
tell me.”

“Touch me harder,” she whimpered.

“Where?”

“My breasts...between my legs.”

He complied, increasing the pressure on her breast
and taking her nipple between two fingers. He caressed her inner thigh with the
flat of his hand now, rubbing and brushing and making her want to scream.

“Is that what you want?” His words were breathy,
husky against her ear.

She knew that voice, and she wanted to feel the
corresponding erection in her hand. She pulled at her hands and earned another
chuckle.

He placed whisper soft kisses against her wrists.
“Gentle, lady.”

“Wiley,” she moaned. “Please...”

“Tell me,” he said.

“Put your hands on me.”

“Where?”

Her hips bucked, showing him. “Put your fingers in
me before I scream!”

He obeyed, sliding a finger inside her slick sex
and moaning against her neck. “That’s all you had to say,” he said, working his
fingers in and out of her.

He replaced one finger with two and she cried out.

“This is what you wanted all along, wasn’t it? You
were staying away from me but it wasn’t because you didn’t want me.” He rolled
her nipple lightly between two fingers, and she moaned. He brushed circles over
her clit with his thumb.

“Tanner,” she begged, “I’m so close. Please—”

“Tell me why you’re really pushing me away,” he said,
ending even the teasing strokes of his thumb.

She rolled her hips, instinctively searching for
his hand, for the pleasure he’d taken away. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she
admitted. “I didn’t want you to fall in love with me.”

“Too late,” he said.

She heard tearing fabric, then the cool air hit
her skin. Before she could protest, his mouth was on her breast and his naked
body was on top of hers. She lifted her hips to meet him as he pushed into her.

Handcuffed and blindfolded, she couldn’t do
anything but work her hips, squeeze her sex around his cock, and feel the
bright pleasure as it radiated through her.

His hands and mouth were everywhere as he pumped
into her, squeezing and sucking at her breast, slipping under her to cup her
ass and angle her hips. His mouth found hers and she kissed him hard, sucking
at his lips, his tongue, tasting him before he pulled away and applied his
savage mouth to her neck.

She wrapped her legs around him and rocked harder,
faster. He followed suit, pumping into her with all the strength and power she
craved—she needed.

“Do you know how hard it was to stay away from you
when I know how good you taste?” he whispered. “Do you know how much I ached
for you? I wake up so hard and all I want is your tight pussy wrapped around my
cock.”

She bucked beneath him, his words making her wild.

“I don’t want anyone else, Josie,” he said, and he
slipped his hand between their bodies.

The first touch of his thumb to her clit and she
came apart. He moaned into her ear.